Master Nathaniel fumed and grumbled a little at the inefficiency of the Yeomanry; but, at the bottom of his heart he was relieved. He had a lurking fear that Hempie was right and Endymion Leer was wrong, and that it had really been fairy fruit after all that Ranulph had eaten. But it is best to let sleeping facts lie. And he feared that if confronted with Willy Wisp the facts might wake up and begin to bite. But what was this that Mumchance was telling him?
It would seem that during the past months there had been a marked increase in the consumption of fairy fruit—in the low quarters of town, of course.
"It's got to be stopped, Mumchance, d'ye hear?" cried Master Nathaniel hotly. "And what's more, the smugglers must be caught and clapped into gaol, every mother's son of them. This has gone on too long."
"Yes, your Worship," said Mumchance stolidly, "it went on in the time of my predecessor, if your Worship will pardon the expression" (Mumchance was very fond of using long words, but he had a feeling that it was presumption to use them before his betters), "and in the days of his predecessor ... and way back. And it's no good trying to be smarter than our forebears. I sometimes think we might as well try and catch the Dapple and clap it into prison as them smugglers. But these are sad times, your Worship, sad times—the 'prentices wanting to be masters, and every little tradesman wanting to be a Senator, and every dirty little urchin thinking he can give impudence to his betters! You see, your Worship, I sees and hears a good deal in my way of business, if you'll pardon the expression ... but the things one's eyes and ears tells one, they ain't in words, so to speak, and it's not easy to tell other folks what they say ... no more than the geese can tell you how they know it's going to rain," and he laughed apologetically. "But I shouldn't be surprised—no, I shouldn't, if there wasn't something brewing."
"By the Sun, Moon, and Stars, Mumchance, don't speak in riddles!" cried Master Nathaniel irritably. "What d'ye mean?"
Mumchance shifted uneasily from one foot to the other: "Well, your Worship," he began, "it's this way. Folks are beginning to take a wonderful interest in Duke Aubrey again. Why, all the girls are wearing bits of tawdry jewelry with his picture, and bits of imitation ivy and squills stuck in their bonnets, and there ain't a poor street in this town where all the cockatoos that the sailors bring don't squawk at you from their cages that the Duke will come to his own again ... or some such rubbish, and...."
"My good Mumchance!" cried Master Nathaniel, impatiently, "Duke Aubrey was a rascally sovereign who died more than two hundred years ago. You don't believe he's going to come to life again, do you?"
"I don't say that he will, your Worship," answered Mumchance evasively. "But all I know is that when Lud begins talking about him, it generally bodes trouble. I remember how old Tripsand, he who was Captain of the Yeomanry when I was a little lad, used always to say that there was a deal of that sort of talk before the great drought."
"Fiddlesticks!" cried Master Nathaniel.
Mumchance's theories about Duke Aubrey he immediately dismissed from his mind. But he was very much disturbed by what he had said about fairy fruit, and began to think that Endymion Leer had been right in maintaining that Ranulph would be further from temptation at Swan-on-the-Dapple than in Lud.